America has imprisoned journalists before. It has even killed them. But what has happened to Parias is something different: A journalist was injured while documenting government power, shot during an attempt to arrest him, prosecuted, repeatedly denied medical care — and then left in immigration detention, where he has continued documenting the conditions around him.

The government's powers to enforce immigration laws and prosecute crimes do not erase the First Amendment. Journalists don't surrender their rights because they lack immigration status. And the government can't make a journalist disappear simply by locking him in a cell.

At some point, the question stops being what else will happen to Parias. It becomes what America is willing to let happen to a journalist.

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